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Letter to UN Secretary General regarding
Kurds in Syria
22.11.2009
By Kurdish National Congress of North America
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November
22, 2009
Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General
United Nations
1st Ave & E 44th St
New York, NY 10017
November 12, 2009
Honorable Ban Ki-moon: |
KNCNA - Kurdish National Congress of North America |
In the wake of the
Sykes-Picot Treaty in 1918, and the subsequent
division of Kurdistan among Iran, Iraq, Syria, and
Turkey, the people of Kurdistan experienced the most
unprecedented atrocities against them in the modern
history. Each respective nation used all the means
in its disposal to assimilate the Kurds into its own
national melting pot. When the Kurds resisted the
repressive policies and strived to protect their
national identity they were physically and
culturally subjected to the policy of annihilation.
Three cultures have been imposed upon the Kurds and
their native culture has become taboo for them to
practice-punishable by imprisonment or death.
In Syria all Syrian citizens are Arabs. According to
the Syrian Constitution, in Chapter 1 Basic
Principles, Part 1 Political Principles, Article 1
[Arab Nation, Socialist Republic], section 2 reads,
“The Syrian Arab region is a part of the Arab
homeland,” and section 3 states, “The people in the
Syrian Arab region are a part of the Arab nation.
They work and struggle to achieve the Arab nation’s
comprehensive unity.” As a result of this racist
Constitution, the Kurds in Syria have no identity of
their own and are alluded to as “Unwanted Guests.”
For a Kurd in Syria to obtain Syrian citizenship he
or she will have to give up his or her Kurdish
identity, and register as an Arab in order to
receive Syrian citizenship and be able to have an
official employment. Part 3 of the Syrian
Constitution [Educational and Cultural Principles]
in Article 21 [Goals],www.ekurd.netreads,
“The educational and cultural system aims at
creating a socialist nationalist Arab generation…
attached to its history and land, proud of its
heritage, and filled with the spirit of struggle to
achieve its nation’s objectives of unity….” This
piece of the Syrian Constitution leaves no doubt
that Syria uses the education system to arabize the
non-Arabs in Syria and instill into their minds the
Ba’athist and pan-Arab ideologies. The Syrian
government has a long history of using brutal
measures to keep its people under control.
In the 1960s, the current Ba’ath regime, under the
pretext of the “Arab Belt,” internally displaced
hundreds of thousands Kurds and distributed their
ancestral lands amongst Arabs. This policy continued
well into the 1980s. In the wake of such an
arbitrary and inhumane policy, The Kurds are largely
spread out and their national demographic cohesion
has been weakened.
When Bashar al-Assad became the President in 2000,
he gave hope for openness and more democratic
practices within the Syrian government. However, his
slogans were never implemented and have been a
distant reality, especially toward the Kurds. As a
matter of fact, under Bashar al-Assad, arbitrary
arrests, torture, trials without lawyers, and
liquidating of innocent Kurds have intensified. To
date, thousands of innocent Kurds are in prisons in
various areas in Syria without any substantiated
charges against them.
The Kurds in Syria have been totally ignored by the
outside world and are hardly mentioned as another
ethnicity in Syria. The lack of interceding by the
world powers, particularly the UN, has given liberty
to the Syrian chauvinist government to continue its
Arabization and cruel policies against the Kurds.
Therefore, it is justifiable to ask your Excellency
to review the UN policies toward Syria and hold the
Syrian government responsible for violating the most
basic Kurdish human rights and encourage the Syrian
authorities to amend their Constitution where Kurds
and other non-Arabs in Syria are equal to Arabs
before the law. Only then can social justice prevail
and human dignity preserved, and only then can the
Kurds enjoy their cultural and democratic rights in
Syria.
Sincerely yours,
Kirmanj Gundi
President
Kurdish National Congress of North America
P.O. Box 90823, Nashville, TN 37209
www.kncna.org
Copyright, respective author or news agency, kncna
org
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